Triple treat (8 page)

began to cry in earnest, sinking down onto the floor of the pool, looking very frustrated and very, very small.

"I feel like the school bully," Tyler muttered grimly. He retrieved the duck and offered it to the boys, but both were crying too hard and refused to accept it. When he handed it to Emily, she threw it out of the pool again.

Carrie got into the pool and took Dylan and Franklin on her lap.

"How do you stand it?" Tyler stared at them, his expression a mixture of horror and awe. She had to live like this, amidst cries and babbling, twenty-four hours a day, three-hundred-sixty-five days a year. Three-sixty-six during leap year. Why, working weekends at the hospital dealing with hysterical women in labor and their panicky husbands probably felt like a vacation to her!

Carrie ignored his question, ignored him, and devoted her full attention to her sons. It took only a few moments of her cuddling and soft voice to calm the two children. Their good humor restored, they each clutched toy boats she'd handed them and crawled around the water, pushing them. Carrie got out of the water and resumed her seat on the chaise.

Neither realized that Tyler had moved closer to it, and when she sat down her leg brushed against his back. Both moved apart so quickly, it would've been humorous, if either felt like laughing. But neither did. Carrie felt as if her skin were on fire. Every nerve ending that had contacted with Tyler's muscular back tingled and burned.

Tyler still felt the silky smooth softness of her leg against him, as if she'd left a permanent, sensual imprint. He felt his body tighten, felt the pleasurable hardening rise of desire and stifled a groan. Now was definitely the time for one of the triplets to dump a bucket of cold water in his lap, or for all three of them to begin screeching again, an equally effective turnoff.

But the triplets played contentedly in the pool. Carrie and Tyler remained silent and tense with sexual awareness.

Tyler glanced covertly from Carrie to the children. They looked adorable, and watching the three of them interact was far more interesting than he could bring himself to admit. As for Carrie, she was sexy and sweet and utterly unattainable—not that he wanted to attain her, of course, but even if he had wanted to, he couldn't because he would not, could not, become involved with a mother of three. It was unthinkable.

Tyler felt a sharp, sudden wave of anger crash through him. He didn't know why but suddenly he was as infuriated as he'd been on the day that an idiot subordinate within the Tremaine Books division had mistakenly sent fifty thousand copies of The Alternative to Beef Cookbook to the Kansas City Cattlemen's Association.

"So this is what you do all day, huh?" He broke the silence, the sneer in his voice matching the sneer on his face. "You mediate fights among the munchkins, you chase them around, outside during warm weather, inside during cold. You feed them, you change diapers, then you feed them again so you have to change diapers again. Day in and day out, repetitious, tedious and unending, with never a moment to yourself. Pretty hellish existence, if you ask me."

"Who asked you?" Carrie snapped, then answered her own question. "Nobody did. And nobody asked you to come over and stay either. If you find it so hellish to be around us, then get out of here!"

Tyler looked at her. She had whipped off her sunglasses and was glaring at him, her blue eyes fierce and piercing, her expression one of pure fury. She was mad, boiling mad, and he shifted uncomfortably on the ground. He couldn't remember anyone ever looking at him with such pure, unabashed anger. Certainly no woman ever had.

The shock of it abruptly doused his own ire. "Don't tell me you're kicking me out again?" he attempted flippantly, flashing his most charming bad-boy grin.

Carrie was not charmed, not a bit. "Yes, I am. You're moody and you have a mean streak and I don't have to put up with any of it, not you or your bad moods or your meanness. So just—take a hike!"

"Moody? Mean? Me?" Tyler was stunned. And stung. "Your accusations are both untrue and unwarranted and incredibly insulting. I've never—"

"No, I'm sure you never have heard a few home truths about yourself," Carrie cut in hotly. "This is a first for you. You're rich and you're single and therefore, you're spoiled. Lots of women will put up with just about any kind of treatment from a rich, single guy like you because they have some stupid delusions that they might actually win you—the prince himself!—and live happily ever after with all your millions."

She paused, midtirade, to breathe. Tyler opened his mouth to speak, then closed it. What she was saying had a hideous ring of truth to it. He'd certainly been aware of his status and his appeal, and he'd certainly used both to his own advantage. His behavior hadn't always been... exemplary. But no woman—not a single one!—had ever dared to tell him so. Until now.

"Well, I don't have to put up with you or suck up to you," Carrie ranted on. "I have nothing to lose and everything to gain by telling you to go away and don't come back."

Tyler stood and stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jeans. "You certainly have..." His voice trailed off. He cleared his throat. "Moxie." It was one of his father's words, not his own, but it seemed to fit. "And while I don't look for moxie in the women I, uh, date—" he smiled sheepishly "—I find that I have to respect it in a—friend."

Carrie rose, too, and they stood, practically toe-to-toe, her glaring up at him, him gazing bemusedly down at her. "I'm not your friend," she countered.

"Last night you said you were."

"I just said it to get rid of you."

"And now you're saying you aren't, for the same alleged purpose—to get rid of me. Rather paradoxical, don't you think?"

"What I think is that you're a jerk."

Tyler grimaced. "If I leave, I won't be back, Carrie. You won't see me again."

She folded her arms, never taking her eyes from him. "Good!"

He knew she meant it, too. Tyler heaved an exasperated sigh. "So why am I still standing here? After all, I'm not nailed to the ground. Why haven't I stormed out of this wreck of a yard, thanking my good fortune for having escaped such a sharp-tongued, bad-tempered witch?"

"Except you'd spell it with a 6," Carrie said coolly.

Tyler stared at her. She didn't look quite as angry anymore. He thought he could detect a distinct gleam of amusement beginning to glimmer in those luminous eyes of hers.

His mouth was suddenly quite dry. "Why the hell am I still here?" he asked huskily.

"I don't know. Maybe because you're awed by my moxie?"

"You're laughing at me," he said incredulously. "And you're not mad anymore." He was suddenly, unexpectedly exhilarated. And enthralled.

"I guess not." Carrie shrugged. "I admit to having the world's worst temper. I'm quick to anger but I get over it just as fast. And what you said about my life—about having to take care of the kids and all—well, it's nothing that Ben hasn't said every time he visits us. But hearing it from you..." Her voice trailed off and she shrugged again. "It offended me. I took it personally and got mad."

"So I noticed." Tyler cupped her shoulders with his hands. It felt perfectly natural to touch her. So very right. His fingers kneaded absently, feeling the delicate lines of her

bones, the soft warmth of her skin. He inhaled sharply and slid his hands down the length of her arms. "Look, Carrie, I-"

She whirled away from him and stepped into the pool. "It's time for lunch/' she announced brightly. "Are you hungry, kids? Hungry for lunch?" She sounded so enthusiastic that the children grew quite excited and echoed something sounding like "yunsh."

"Good! Come on," Carrie said encouragingly, helping first Emily, then Franklin, and finally Dylan out of the pool. Franklin and Dylan ran to the house. Emily paused and looked back at Tyler.

"Yunsh?" she said questioningly.

Tyler was absurdly touched. "Are you inviting me to lunch, Emily?"

Emily looked up at him with those big blue eyes of hers, looking tiny and cute with her mop of blond hair and her round, little face. She raised her small arms in an unmistakable demand to be picked up.

"You want me to carry you?" Tyler asked. Emily did not reply, but waited expectantly. Tyler scooped up the little girl and headed toward the house. He had to, he assured himself. Snubbing a one-year-old was inexcusably churlish. "Okay, I'll accept your kind invitation, Emily. I'll have lunch with you."

"Oh, no!" Carrie groaned. She opened the back porch door and the boys clambered inside. Sleuth, the cat, who had been napping on the glider, dashed into the house when he heard them coming.

"What do you mean, 'oh, no'?" demanded Tyler, trailing her into the kitchen.

"Exactly what I said. I thought you'd leave when we came inside."

"We're not fighting anymore," Tyler reminded her. "Why do you want me to leave?"

"Because you're exhausting," she said bluntly. "Being with you is exhausting. And I only had three and a half hours' sleep last night and right now I'm so tired that all I want to do is to feed the kids lunch, put them down for their naps and then crash into bed."

"I like the 'crash into bed' part." Tyler grinned wickedly. "And I am not exhausting, I'm stimulating. Ask any of the Tremaine board of directors who it is that keeps those interminable board meetings from becoming deadly boring. They'll all say it's me."

"Deadly boring can be restful. You, I repeat, are exhausting. That's why I'd like to rescind Emily's invitation to lunch."

It was true, but only the partial truth, Carrie acknowledged grimly. The full, unabridged version would have to include those tantalizing streaks of pleasure that had spun through her when he'd touched her. The almost stunning urge to melt against his big hard body, to press herself into the wiry-soft mat of hair on his chest, to rub her legs against the muscular columns of his.

She hadn't dared let it happen. She had already spent entirely too much time thinking about the way he had kissed her last night, reliving the feel and the touch and the taste of him. She'd even dreamed about it during her paltry three and a half hours of sleep.

What utter insanity! A sexual infatuation she did not need! Aside from being shamefully disloyal to poor dear Ian, getting physical with Tyler Tremaine would be sheer folly, not to mention a guarantee of misery.

The man undoubtedly was accustomed to women throwing themselves at him, to doing anything at all to please him. The only reason he was sticking around now was because she did not try to please him and he found it novel. She related to him on a wholly different level than the other women in his life because she was not one of the women in his life. And she fully intended to keep it that way.

"Let's take off these wet suits/' she said briskly to no one in particular, reaching down to strip off Dylan's trunks. He wore a sodden diaper underneath which she removed and tossed into the trash. He took off into the hall, nude and squealing.

"Want to catch him, dry him off and put a diaper on him?" Carrie asked Tyler, who was watching her intently, little Emily still held high in his arms.

"No!"

"Well, if you insist on staying, you're going to have to make yourself useful. Would you please carry Emily and Franklin upstairs so I can change them? I'm going after Dylan."

"You asked so nicely, how can I refuse? Your wish is my command." Tyler executed a deep bow, pausing to scoop up Franklin while still hanging on to Emily.

"Monk-mey," Emily said on their way upstairs. She patted Tyler's cheek with her tiny hand. "Monk-mey."

Tyler was floored. "That's what I called you last night! Emily, you remembered!"

He told Carrie that astonishing fact as she dried off the triplets and taped fresh disposable diapers on them. "Imagine her putting that together, remembering me and the word monkey. Saying it to me—"

"Maybe she thinks it's your name," joked Carrie. "Or your species."

He could not be diverted by humor. "Carrie, she said it to me over twenty-four hours after I first said it to her! And I only said it one time! She is a brilliant child," he added earnestly.

"She isn't stupid," Carrie agreed, "but 'brilliant' is pushing it. Kids learn fast at this age, Tyler, and they learn new things every day." She tilted her head and gazed at him squarely. "It's exciting. It's fun. Watching the three of them learn and grow and do new things is why I don't believe that I lead—how did you put it?—a hellish existence."

"Touche," Tyler conceded. "You can give it right back/' he added with grudging admiration.

"And I can dish it out, too. Keep that in mind the next time you decide to pick a fight with me. n

The triplets were running around the room, flinging toys about. Tyler caught Carrie and grabbed her from behind, stopping her in her tracks. "You're a tough cookie, huh?" He was smiling, his green eyes filled with playful challenge. "A really tough broad."

"Yes." She gazed sidelong at him, her blue eyes gleaming with an age-old challenge of their own. "So don't tangle with me, mister."

"To be forewarned is to be forearmed." His arm snaked out to wrap around her midriff, pulling her back against him. "That's a battle cry we warriors in marketing chant at staff meetings." His fingers, stroking her nape, began a slow, sensuous massage.

For a moment, surprise held Carrie immobile. Then the desire she'd experienced earlier gripped her again, intensifying and overwhelming. Her eyelids snapped closed and she turned her head toward his mouth at the same moment his lips sought hers, in a mutually choreographed move so smooth it was as if they had rehearsed it together many times.

He rubbed his lips softly against her mouth, and her lips parted instantly, encouragingly, at the pressure. His hand splayed over her belly and she laid her hand over his. Their fingers interlaced at the moment their tongues touched.

There was no way he could hide the burgeoning surge of desire at her response and Tyler groaned, opening his mouth wider and harder over hers as his tongue sought an intimate erotic little duel with hers.

Carrie made a soft sound in her throat as the kiss deepened. Her breasts swelled and tightened, as if he had actually touched them. She felt a thick, syrupy warmth pool deeply in her abdomen.